String Pendant Lamp

Introduction: String Pendant Lamp

Make a designer quality string pendant lamp on your own with just some crochet thread, a balloon, and fabric stiffener. It makes a little bit of a mess, takes about a day to dry, but it looks really cool, is infinitely cheaper than buying one from Design Within Reach, and is the hot new DIY lamp craze that's sweeping the nation!

Many thanks to fungus amungus for his collaboration and help on this project.

Step 1: Materials

fabric stiffener (1 16oz. bottle per lamp that you'd like make)

large spherical party balloons (can be gotten at a party shop in the 16" or 3' sizes)

Step 2: Inflate

Inflate the balloon and tie a slip knot in the end of it (the balloon will need to be opened again later).

Then, secure one end of the crochet thread to the knot on the balloon by either loosely tying it, or taping it into place. We didn't tie it because we're gonna need to get back into the balloon later...like I said.

Step 3: Saturate Thread With Fabric Stiffener

The fabric stiffener is what keeps the thread in the shape of a sphere once the balloon is popped, so it's pretty important.

To really coat the thread well we found that you need to allot around an entire 16 oz. bottle of fabric stiffener per lamp globe.

You can either pre-soak the thread and then wind the balloon with wet thread, which will ensure that every piece of thread is properly saturated with stiffener. Or, if you are afraid of making a mess, you can wrap the balloon with dry thread, and then dredge/brush the balloon in the stiffener once it has been wrapped.

If you choose to go the clean road, just really try to soak the thread well and make sure that you've got enough fabric stiffener to thoroughly coat the whole balloon. It takes more than you'll think!

In the project video and photos below Ed and I are using the pre-soak, wet wrap method to ensure total saturation and coverage.

Step 4: Wrap the Thread Around the Balloon

Wrap the balloon with the saturated thread trying to keep good tension the whole time. You want the thread to make loops around the largest circumference on the balloon as possible.

Once you've worked in one area a bit, move on to another. You're trying to get an even covering of string around the balloon.

Step 5: Over-inflate the Balloon

Once the balloon has been complete wrapped with as much thread as you like (our small, less dense globes used around 150 yards of thread while our larger more denser globes used around 300 yards of thread), take out the slip knot that you previously tied and blow the balloon up as much as you can. Big cheeks and diaphragm everyone!

The balloon has a tendency to shrink as the fabric stiffener dries, so we want to fill it up as much as possible to keep things from getting wrinkly and sagging over the 24-hour drying process.

Step 6: Dry

Dry the wrapped balloon for 24 hours in a temperature stable environment. I placed some garbage bags down in my bathtub to protect against drips and hung the globes from some extra crochet thread.

Hot air expands, so heat = a tight balloon. I cranked up my electric heater and put a small fan in there too to circulate the air. This method worked well.

I'm pretty adamant about the importance of this step and here's why...the first two globes that I made just dried in my living room, and throughout the course of the night (cold), next day (warmer) and then night (cold) when they were finally dry, the balloon had changed volumes multiple times and distorted the sphere significantly.

Step 7: Remove the Balloon

Once the fabric stiffener is dry, remove the balloon from inside the string prison.

First, pop the balloon with a pin. If you're lucky, it will naturally start to shrink away from the string. If not, you've got to start poking at it with a long object. We used a screwdriver. Bit by bit it will come away from the string and pretty soon it will come completely free.

Cut the strings around the top that are holding it in place and pull it out.

Step 8: Cut a Hole and Insert the Bulb

Cut a whole in the top of the globe with a scissors so that there's enough space to insert the bulb and the light fixture.

Step 9: Stopper

You've got to create some kind of stopper to hold the globe in place on the fixture.

The easiest thing we came up with was to drill a small hole in the little plastic thing that manages the cable on the Ikea lamp and use some fishing line to tie the plastic cable manager to the top of the globe.

You can also use some bailing wire that's been wrapped around the cord and then bent out into two little prongs to hold up the globe. This is the method that is shown in the video. There are probably many different ways to attach the globe to the fixture.

Once the globe is affixed to the fixture, it's ready to hang and light up your life!

This is my first string lamp! I used 5 skeins of yarn because I didn't want the light bulb shape to show.

The process of hanging it was a challenge at first because I didn't get the Ikea light which came with the clip. But then I realized that I could hand the light cord separately, and hang the string lamp independently with a couple pieces of fishing line. Worked brilliantly.

Did you attach your pendant light to a pre-existing light fixture? I am wondering because you have the "pole" from the ceiling coming into your fixture. I will be making one for a room with a fixture that also has that feature and I was wondering whether I should take that part down or not.

Thank you! I found a canopy kit to cover the hole in the ceiling and the pole you are referring to is light or lamp cord that I attached to the lightbulb socket/fixture in the pendant. I painted the canopy and cord all brown. I forgot how I attached the pendant to the cord though.

I'm really having a problem finding these round balloons in Minneapolis. A balloon store actually had the 3 foot ones, but that's too big to do with my niece and nephew. I asked at the party stores, and all they have are tear-drop shapes. I see someone said they found them at the dollar store, so I'll check those out in the next week or so.

Maybe it would work to use a shaped mylar balloon, like a big star. I dunno, just throwin' that out there. Probably more $$$ tho'.

And for those of you using elmers glue - The Stiffeners should actually remain stiff/dry for longer than the regular glue. Not out in the rain, of course. I've been using it for years to make fabric postcards stiff, so I can send them in the mail.

And stiffeners can have water-based acrylic paint added to tint with a little color. They can be found at fabric stores, or craft stores, like Michaels. "Aleene's Fabric Stiffener and Draping Liquid" is one I've gone through a couple bottles of.

You can get those slam balloons, the kind with the rubber band on them that you bounce against your hand almost anywhere!!!! Those work great and you can blow up bigger or smaller as needed. GOOD LUCK!

Did you find the balloons? I would be happy to look here. I'm pretty sure I've seen lots. It would be my pleasure to send them to you. Just let me know. It would be an uninflated balloon bouquet gift to you. O.K, now my mind is thinking, sayings like "don't burst my balloon" and the song with the words, "Up up inthe sky with my beautiful balloon" and silly sayings I could make up for my grandchildren, like," Look at that big baboon, holding the red balloon." ;0)

if anyone knows how to knit or crochet, you can use anything lacey looking you have made and personally, I think it looks even cooler. I have been dreaming about making one of these after seeing this on my favorite knitting site. please note, I did not make this one myself, however the person that did make it crocheted all the lace herself she is AMAZING! To those of you that are not artistically inclined in the fiber arts department, you could also use doilys, lace, mesh, see-through fabric, pretty much anything you could think of!

It's called ravelry.com - I have all my knitting and crochet projects there, you can put all your yarns, patterns, needles, projects, pretty much everything. And they have every pattern you could every want plus 100's of thousands of other people, forums, groups, pretty much everything ever knitting related.

Absolutely fabulous. Cotton also is the best thread for colour dying so the lace could be colour matched to your room. Cold water dyes are available and work very well. Love it to bits. (By the way I havn't spelled colour incorrectly) Here in Australia we use the British spelling.

You can also use liquid starch.Also paper towels work well also, just peel them apart, and lay on the ballon add your starch , sugar water, whatever you decide to use.i have made these for easter cutting a hole out in the side after it is dried and adding lace around the hole I had cut out put easter grass in a bunny or whatever you like and use as table decor.

I remember making just the ball part with no light with my mom and sisters when I was in elementary school. We used colored kite string and clear drying craft glue. We just used them as shelf decorations. It was fun. I keep thinking about making some again I just haven't gotten around to it.

I found homemade fabric stiffener recipe if anyone is interested. This is it. Heat 2 cups of water to boiling, now mix 1/2 cup cornstarch with 1 cup cold water and have another cup of water available. When the water is boiling, add cornstarch mixture slowly, stirring constantly. If mixture becomes too thick (which can happen quickly), add some of the extra water. After if cools, saturate the items to be starched, squeeze out excess, shape and let dry. Press with steam iron. Leftover starch may be stored in refrigerator for use at another time. If it separates, use a wire whisk to blend it.